Karla Karma: It Was a Very.....Year

The year when Lonnie should have turned 65 and our mother 100. With the passing of my Aunt Johnnie at 102, the last of my parents' blood siblings, my generation becomes the elders. Twenty fifteen, a year like none other. But that can obviously be said about any year, right? Right. Yeah, but.....

Baby Lonnie

Mom's 80th birthday
Wyatt, me, Max, Clip, Pam and Lonnie
Uncle O seated with Mom

Jane Lombardo

With Bonnie at her 70th birthday party in Guarare

January - After much discussion, with John Munson, my fellow Bots 11 who also served in Panama, Volunteers previously and currently serving and a great deal of research, I go to Panama to find a place to live. I am hosted by RPCVs, Bonnie Birker and Jane Lombardo, who, wait for it, served in BOTSWANA in the first wave after independence.

Goodbye baby girl, Will Cotter and my daughter, Kamani

I give myself 10 days, see eight houses in Rompio, Pocri, Coronado, Gorgona and Pedasi. I meet some lovely, lovely people and some, mainly ex-pats, that look at me like I'd spit in their beer. But, fortunately, they, the latter, were the minority. But its the house in Pedasi and the town itself that clinch the deal. Back to California, to pack, say my goodbyes and....

In Gorgona

February - I MOVE TO PANAMA, to Pedasi in the Los Santos District!

March - For the first time since I was 5, I literally do NOTHING, no school, no work, no volunteering, no child raising. It is fucking incredible.

April - StarKat adopts me. Writing! I submit what I hope is my dissertation proposal.......still waiting to hear. My first attempt at writing a screenplay. Its bloody awful.

Kat is a mighty hunter. She's brought me a bat, sphinx moth, geckos and other lizards and this decapitated, eviscerated mouse

One of my vecinas cats

Yet again, a bat finds me

May - My intrepid son, Khalil, tells me about his new girlfriend, Laressa Tobias. Stay tuned

June - I go from sexty two to boring sixty three, throw myself the first annual Happy Birthday Potluck Dance Party.

On Bull Beach

Ragan Mozee - she is the only person to come visit me in the four years I've lived abroad

With Jane, Jeff Gardner, Bob Arias (RPCV & CD) and Randy

Susie, Bonnie, Randy, Mikkel and Jane

July - Finish my memoir, Two Thirds Terrific, about my Peace Corps experience. Over 900 pages, mainly because of the pics but still a tad long.......editing.

Cover design less the words

August - I go to South America! Columbia! Medellin!

After nine months from when I made my original request, FOIA finally sends me materials. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, I'll explain later) they are not the materials requested. I had applied to do another PC tour and was rejected, supposedly because even after having successfully completing a tour and extending for a third year, I was less qualified than someone that had not had this experience (insert snort of derision here). I had refused to list the Country Director as a reference (another long story). The reviewer asked at least one of my references what was behind that and, I suspected, spoke to the CD anyway.

I appealed and under duress listed the CD. My appeal showed that no longer being qualified was a ludicrous, at best, conclusion, but it, too was rejected. So I requested through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) any and all materials related to the review of my application and the appeal. What I got were materials related to also rejected application to do a fourth year in Botswana. Very interesting but not what I'd waited nine months to receive.

Now a year since my original request!

September - Murphy's Law Fishing